Microsoft has announced that users will have to update to the new version of Skype for desktop in order to continue using the program beyond this month. From 1 March, people will no longer be able to log in to version 7.16 (and older builds) of Skype for Windows desktop, or version 7.18 (and older) of Skype for Mac. The company hasn't given users a great deal of notice, having only announced the update on 3 February. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Karthigayan Muthukaruppanof Manipal International University in Selangor, Malaysia, and co-workers have developed a system using a genetic algorithm that gets better and better with each iteration to match irregular ellipse fitting equations to the shape of the human mouth displaying different emotions. They have used photos of individuals from South-East Asia and Japan to train a computer to recognize the six commonly accepted human emotions -- happiness, sadness, fear, angry, disgust, surprise -- and a neutral expression. The upper and lower lip is each analyzed as two separate ellipses by the algorithm. "In recent years, there has been a growing interest in improving all aspects of interaction between humans and computers especially in the area of human emotion recognition by observing facial expression," the team explains. Earlier researchers have developed an understanding that allows emotion to be recreated by manipulating a representation of the human face on a computer screen. Such research is currently informing the development of more realistic animated actors and even the behavior of robots.

Seagate supported the Thailand Humanoid Robot Soccer Championship, in which students designed their own soccer-playing machines. Hanuman Team from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) emerged as champions of this year's competition. The team won a cash prize of 200,000 baht and will represent Thailand at the World Robocup Soccer Humanoid League 2013 in Osaka, Japan, next year. Thailand's Humanoid Robot Soccer Championship 2012 was jointly organized by Seagate Technology (Thailand) Limited, the Thai Robotics Society (TRS), FIBO of King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC). This year saw 11 teams from 8 universities battling for the chance to represent Thailand in the World Robocup Soccer Humanoid League 2013.

One of the most significant threats faced by computer networks is from "bots." A bot is simply a program that runs on a computer without the owner's knowledge and carries out any of a number of tasks over the network and the wider internet. It can run the same tasks, such as sending emails or accessing a specific page on the internet, at a much higher rate than would be possible if a person were to carry out the task. A collection of bots in a network, used for malicious purposes, is a botnet and while they are often organized and run by a so-called botmaster there are bots that are available for hire for malicious and criminal activity. Bots might be illicitly installed on computers in the home, schools, businesses, government buildings and other installations.

The leader of al-Qaida in the Arabain Peninsula (AQAP), Qassim al-Rimi, released an audio recording in which he reportedly called President Donald Trump the "White House's new fool" while speaking about a recent deadly U.S. raid against the group in Yemen which killed 25 civilians, including 11 women and children. In the recording, which was released late Saturday, al-Rimi addressed his followers, saying: "The White House's new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land." The raid took place Jan. 29 and the recording claimed many U.S. soldiers were also killed and wounded during the operation. It was President Trump's first counter-terrorism offensive that killed more than a dozen terrorists and also U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens. The casualties included the 8-year old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

Facial recognition technology has come a long way since Facebook first asked you to tag yourself in your uploaded photos. Refined over the years, it now tags you and your friends automatically, and can identify you in photos even when your face is hidden. Face recognition technology has sat comfortably in pop culture for decades, when detectives on TV scanned databases on the hunt for suspects, the faces blending into each other until PING! It took reality a little longer to catch up to the foresight of Hollywood, and while we haven't reached the invasive face analysis-based advertising showcased in Spielberg's'Minority Report', we may be well on our way. As significant advancements are being made in available processing power and deep learning, face recognition tech has taken off.

Public Sector Agencies Must Adopt Emerging Technologies Like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to Effectively Compete for Talent, Accenture Report Finds ARLINGTON, Va.; Feb. 2, 2017 – Public sector agencies must adopt emerging technologies – including machine learning, artificial intelligence and biometrics – to attract and retain more technically adept employees. This approach is critical to addressing a widening skills gap and strong competition from a better financed private sector, a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN) shows. The report, Emerging Technologies in Public Service, examines the adoption of emerging technologies across agencies with the most direct interaction with citizens or the greatest responsibility for citizen-facing services: health and social services, policing/justice, revenue, border services, administration and pensions / social security. As part of the report, Accenture surveyed nearly 800 public service technology professionals across nine countries to identify emerging technologies being implemented or piloted. These technologies include advanced analytics/ predictive modeling, the Internet of Things, intelligent process automation, video analytics, biometrics/ identity analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing/ generation.

This quarterly earnings report is not subject to the quarterly review procedures in accordance with the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. At the time of disclosure of this quarterly earnings report, the review procedures for quarterly financial statements in accordance with the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act are incomplete. The earnings forecasts are based on information currently available to the Company at the time of the release of these materials. Actual business results may differ from the forecasts due to various factors. For information regarding the assumptions on which earnings forecasts are based and points to note when using the earnings forecasts, please refer to "(3) Information regarding consolidated earnings forecasts and other forward-looking statements" under "1. Supplementary material on quarterly earnings will be available on the Company's website, on Friday, January 27, 2017.

Two news items about card games caught my attention recently. One is about a Chinese woman who took away about HK$160 million in winnings from baccarat tables in several casinos in Macau. The other one is about an artificial intelligence (AI) called Libratus, which managed to beat four of the world's top Texas poker players and won chips worth US$1.7 million in a 20-day marathon tournament. With regard to the mystery gambler, casino operators were dumbfounded. "She kept winning over HK$10 million every day, it's so unusual," the head of the Macau Frontline Workers Association was quoted as saying.

Most people have never heard of a Swiss man called Francisco Fernandez, but tens of millions of us rely on him to look after our money. An unassuming 53-year-old who likes playing the piano in his spare time, he is responsible for the security of $4tn (£3.2tn) of bank deposits around the world. Mr Fernandez is the founder and boss of a company that is as little known as he is - Avaloq. The Swiss business and its 2,500 employees may fly under the radar, but it is one of the world's largest providers of banking software. Its systems are used by more than 450 banks around the world, including the UK's Barclays, HSBC, and Royal Bank of Scotland, plus Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, UBS and Nomura.